Two Fans Drove From Rotterdam for Scissors. Then They Bought the Company.

In 2018, Paul Jacobs and Jan-Bart Fanoy drove from Rotterdam to Sheffield to pick up their Kickstarter scissors. They arrived to find the company in receivership and the craft of hand-making scissors on the verge of disappearing from England.

They bought Ernest Wright instead.

That purchase explains why the Kutrite kitchen scissors have a 12-16 month waitlist. The new owners rehired the master puttertogetherers (that’s their actual job title), rebuilt the workshop, and revived the 1960s Kutrite pattern that Philip Wright designed when everyone else made bulky kitchen scissors.

They did not add shifts. They did not outsource. They hired apprentices and trained them properly.

We gave the Kutrite a 10 out of 10 for WOW, our measure of uniqueness and discovery factor. Here’s why that score matters for anyone considering the wait.

What We Verified About Ernest Wright

Ernest Wright was founded in Sheffield in 1902. Five generations of the Wright family ran the business until Nick Wright died in 2018 and the company entered receivership. Paul Jacobs and Jan-Bart Fanoy bought the assets and rehired the remaining master puttertogetherers, Cliff and Eric, both with 60+ years of experience.

The Heritage Crafts Association awarded Ernest Wright the inaugural President’s Award for Endangered Crafts in 2020, a prize initiated by HRH The Prince of Wales. Sheffield once had 120 scissor-making companies. Now there are two.

Ernest Wright is one of them.

The Kutrite pattern, dormant since the 1980s, relaunched on 1 August 2021 after years of tooling development. Kottke.org has featured Ernest Wright in their gift guide for three consecutive years. One Kottke reader described their anniversary as “the scissors anniversary” after waiting 16 months for delivery.

Why the Waitlist Validates the Scissors

The waitlist exists because the new owners made a choice. They could have expanded production, hired more workers, or outsourced components. Instead, they kept the team small and the standards high.

Each pair passes through hands that have been making scissors for decades, then gets signed by Cliff and Eric before going into a wooden presentation box with a Sheffield Made Certificate bearing the Lord Mayor’s seal.

BladeForums collectors call Ernest Wright scissors “rare as hens teeth” and “world class heirloom.” One reviewer noted they are “a total bargain compared to fragile Japanese artisanal scissors at daft prices.” Another described finding “not a bump or rough patch anywhere” on the finished product.

The 12-16 month wait is not a supply chain problem. It is the speed at which hand-polished Sheffield steel moves from workshop to wooden box when two people with 120+ combined years of experience refuse to rush.

Who We Matched the Kutrite To

We matched the Kutrite to hosts building a kitchen with provenance, couples who converted wedding registry cash to buy-it-for-life items, and housewarming gifts where the waitlist proves you planned ahead.

The 16-month lead time makes the Kutrite ideal for weddings and anniversaries with long engagements, where ordering early becomes part of the gift’s story.

On Kottke, one commenter wrote that they spent their wedding money on “high quality items that would last a lifetime or several” and Ernest Wright scissors were at the top of that list. Forum reviewers compared Ernest Wright directly to Wilkinson and found “works of art” that mass-market alternatives with plastic handles cannot match.

What the Score Means

The Kutrite earned an 8.6 overall score at SleekNova. The WOW dimension (35% of our formula) hit a perfect 10 because of the rescue story, the viral video with 6.3M views, the waitlist, and the fact that the craftsmen are literally called puttertogetherers.

GLOW (visual quality) scored 8 for the 1960s silhouette and hand-polished stainless steel. MOMENT (gift experience) scored 8 for the wooden box, the signatures inside the lid, and the conversation starter built into every pair.

Trust scored 7, reflecting 26 brand-level reviews across Review Centre UK and Trustpilot. Direct Kutrite reviews are thin because the scissors only relaunched in August 2021 and every pair requires a 12-16 month wait. We weighted the Heritage Crafts Association award heavily, given it was initiated by HRH The Prince of Wales.

The Bottom Line

Two fans who loved Ernest Wright scissors so much they drove across Europe to buy them now own the company. The waitlist exists because they chose heritage over scale.

Every pair comes with a lifetime warranty and signatures from craftsmen who have spent six decades learning to make blades slide past each other with consistent pressure all the way to the tip.

The Kutrite Kitchen Scissors cost $153.11 and require 12-16 months of patience.

For gifters who plan ahead, that patience becomes part of the story.